Probably fed by my gadget habit I’ve always been into listening to music and then combining that with video and having the two running together to better the entire experience. I am firmly of the belief that the soundtrack of the film is just as important as what’s on screen.

The combination of the two probably started in the late 1980s when I worked in a Hi-Fi/AV shop whilst finishing off at University in Aberdeen.

The manifestation was just plumbing the VCR into the Hi-Fi to get stereo sound in reasonable quality. Then by 1990 I moved into Dolby Surround with a TV with the decoding built in. From then it’s gone on but I’ve been fairly settled with my set-up until recently when I moved into high definition with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD as was.

The pic above is my old set-up but shows the Denon kit on the lower shelf.

My current set-up comprises a Sony 40” Full HD (1080p) LCD TV with Sony Blu-Ray player and Sony Freeview DVD Recorder (player) which upscales DVD to 1080i levels.

Audio is taken up with my old but stonking Denon AVC-A10SE/POA-T10 amplification system with THX Ultra certification. It can do surround formats all the way up to Dolby Digital EX, DTS ES - both 6.1 formats. The reason for considering a change is the Tru-HD audio on Blu-Ray but I am wondering whether I will get any benefit from changing.

I also shove the XBOX 360 through the TV at 1080p resolution (for HD-DVD) and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound - wonderfully immersive! Great when you get Rock Band or Guitar Hero going too! Or Gears of War or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare! :-)